The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1887-08-19

OVER ONE HUNDRED PEOPLE KILLED IN
A RAILROAD ACCIDENT FOUR
HUNDRED MORE
WOUNDED.

HUNDRED MORE
WOUNDED.
The Chicago Times special from
Forest, ILL.,, says call the railway
horrors in the history of this country
were surpassed three miles east
OF Chatsworth Thursday night of last
week, when an excursion train on the
Toledo, Peoria and w stern Road
dropped through burning bridge and
over one hundred people were killed
and four times that number were more
or less badly injured.
"The train was composed of six
sleeping cars, six day coaches and
chair cars and three baggage 1t was
carrying nine hundred and sixty pas
sengers, all excursionists, and was
bound for Niagara Falls. The train
had been made up all along the line of
the Toledo, Peoria and Western Road,
and the excursionists hailed from vari-
GUS points in Central Illinois, the bulk
Of them, however, coming from
Peoria. Some of the passengers came
from Canton, ElPaso, Washington and
in fact all stations along the line; some
from as far west as Burlington and
Keokuk, Iowa. A special and cheap
rate had b N made for the excursion
aud all sorts of people took advantage
Of it. When the train drew out of
Peoria at 8 o'clock Thursday evening
it was loaded TO its utmost capacity.
Every berth in the six sleepers was
taken and the day cars carried sixty
prople each. The train was 80 heavy
that two engines were hitched to it,
and WREN it passed this place it was an
hour and half behind time.
CRASHING THRoUGH A BRIDGE.
Cha swo tn TIE rext station east of
Forest, is six miles off and the run
there was made in seven minutes, so
the terrible momentum of those fifteen
coaches and two engines shooting
through space at the rate of mile a
minute can be understood. No stop
was made at Chats yorth and on and
on the heavy train with its living
freight sped through the darkness of
the night. Three miles east of Chats
worth is little slough and where the
railroad crosses dry run about ten
feet deep and fifteen feet wide. Over
this was stretched an ordinary wooden
trestle bridge and as the excursion
train camel laundering down on it
what was the horror of the engineer
on the front engine when he saw that
this brid . was afre. Right up be-
fore his eyes leape1 the b .ght flames
and the next instant he was among
them. There was no chance to stop.
Had there been warning it would have
taken half r'ile to stop that on-rush-
ing mass of wood, iron and human
lives, and the train was within one
hundred yards of the red tongued mes
senger of death before it flashed its
fatal signals into the engineers face.
But he passed over in safety, the first
engine keeping the rails. As it went
over, the bridge fell beneath it, and it
could only have been the terrific speed
of the train which saved the lives OF
the engineer and his fireman.
But the next eugine went down and
instantly the deed o: de, th was done.
Car crashed into car, coaches piled on
top of each other and in the twinkline
of an eye nearly forty people found in
slant death and fifty more were so hurt
that they could not live. AS for the
wounded they were everywhere. Only
the sleeping coaches escaped, and as
the startled aud hali-dressed passengers
came tunbling out of them they found
such scene of death as is rarely wit
messed and such work to do that il
seemed as if human hands were utterly
incapable
NINE CARS SMASHED.
1t lacked but five minutes of mid
night. Down in the ditch lay the sec
ond engine, Engineer McClintock deai
and Fireman Applegate badly injured
On top were piled the three baggage
cars, one on top of another, like f,
chlld's card house after he had swep
it with his hand Then came the 81,
day coaches. They were telescoped a
cars never were before and three o
them were pressed into just spac'
enough for one. The second car hat
mounted off its trucks, crashed through
the car ahead of it, crushing the wood
work aside like tinder and lay there
resting on the tops of the seats, Will
every passenger in tho front car wa
lying dead and dying underneath
Out of that carsbut2four people cam
alive On top of the second Car la,
the third and its bottom was smeare,
with the blood of its victims. TIL
other three cars wer not so badly crush
ed, but they were broken and twiste'
in every concev vable way and ever,
crushed timber and beam represente,
a crushed human frame and broker
bone.
Instantly the air was filled with erie
of the wounded and the shrieks O
those about,to die. The groans of mel
and the screams of women united T.
make an appalling sound, and abov
all could be heard the agonizing erie
of little children as in some instance
they lay pinned alongside their dea'
parents. And there was another terri
BILE danger yet to be met The bridg
was still burning, and the wrecked car
were lying on and around the fercel
burning embers. Everywhere IN tn
wreck were wounded and unhurt mer
women and children, whose lives coul,
be saved if they could be gotten oui
but whose death, and death in a mos
horrible form, was certain if the twist
ed wood of the broken cars caught fire
And to fight the fire there was not
drop OF water and only some fift
able bodied men, who still had pres
ence of mind and nerve enough to d
their duty.
The only light was the light of tn
burning bridge. And with so muc
of its aid the fifty men went to wor
TO fight the flames. For four hour
they fought like fiends, and for fou
hours the victory hung in the balance
Earth was the only weapon with whic
the foe could be fought, and SO the al
tempt was made to smother it out
There was no pick or shovel to di
it up, no baskets or barrows to carr
it, and 80 desperate were they tina
al 4. ~ G II